Camnia Burana 152: a beautiful summer!

It is now the first of June, the start of the meteorological summer. Today is was hardly 12 degrees in the Netherlands and the weather more resembles autumn than summer. When reading through my edition of the Carmina Burana, I found this little song in which the poet tells about a summer which has never appeared before, so bright and he urges the youth to make love. Unfortunately at the end the poet has a sneering remark for men like me…

The poem is easy. It has the normal mediaeval orthography in which ae and oe are written as e: estas is aestas etc.

152

1.

Estas non apparuit    preteritis temporibus,

que sic clara fuerit;    ornantur prata floribus.

Refl.

Aves nunc in silva canunt

et canendo dulce garriunt.

2.

Iuno lovem superat    amore maritali;

Mars a Vulcano capitur    rete artificiali.

Refl.

Aves nunc in silva canunt

et canendo dulce garriunt.

3.

In exemplum Veneris    hec fabula proponitur;

Phebus Daphnem sequitur,    Europa tauro luditur.

Refl.

Aves nunc in silva canunt

et canendo dulce garriunt.

4.

Amor querit iuvenes, ut ludant cum virginibus;

Venus despicit senes, qui impleti sunt doloribus.

Refl.

Aves nunc in silva canunt

et canendo dulce garriunt.

aestas -atis (f): summer

pratum: meadow

garrio: to chatter

Iuno: she had no extramarital affairs, unlike Jupiter

supersum: to surpass someone (acc.) in something (abl.)

Mars a Vulcano capitur: Aphrodite – married to Vucanus - had an affair with Mars, but Vulcanus caught the two lovers in an invisible net (See the blog Ovid Metamorphoses IV 167-189 a `Götterkomödie'.) 

retum: net

Phebus Daphnem sequitur: Apollo, hit by an arrow of Amor, chased after the nymph Daphne. She asked for help and was turned into a laurel.

quaero quaesi quaesitum: to look for (to hit the youth with his arrows)

For the readers of German is here a Middle High German poem following the previous poem.

(div = diu = die)

152a

Ich gesach den sumer nie, daz er so schone duhte mich:

mit menigen blůmen wolgetan div heide hat gezieret sih.

sanges ist der walt so vol;

div zit div tůt den chleinen volgelen wol.